Okay, my response to that would be circling back to my earlier question about, when has it worked out that way? In what country has this been tried and had a good impact?
I'm not trying to just keep asking over and over even though it seems like you don't want to answer that question -- so you can treat it as a rhetorical question, I guess. It's just that that's the way I look at things. As you said, if the theory doesn't match the practice, then one or the other is wrong. I do think you have to look at the practice. In socialism or communism or capitalism, there are generally big elements of the practice that don't match the theory.
I didn't say socialism was more prone to corruption than capitalism. I said that the USSR and China showed themselves way more prone to takeover by non-benevolent forces than the US. It wasn't a general statement about socialism in general... probably, if you look back in history, you'll be able to find examples of when socialism and communism were set up well and worked well. I mean, a lot of FDR's things were socialism (big government programs to employ people, so that the "ownership" of the entity doing the production was a democratic government instead of private industry, and then providing health care to people according to their needs instead of what they can afford). And look, it was fuckin fantastic. But I'm asking you what elements or models you would like to use. It's not a gotcha. I mean, I am kind of trying to make a point, yes. But also, partly, I'm genuinely asking, and you seem like you're treating it as some kind of hostile or irrelevant question.
It seems like you're holding up the theory of communism, according to communists, and comparing it to the practice of capitalism. Of course capitalism's gonna look way worse, because capitalism has some big problems. I am saying, we should look at the practice (and, sure, the theory) of both and find things that work and then do those things, and also see if we can improve on them, instead of only the theory. And in particular, I think that history shows that setting up a centrally-controlled economy, because then the ultimate-authority central planners can make sure everything's set up fairly for everybody, has oftentimes worked out way worse than even the pretty significant evils of unchecked capitalism. Would you agree with that, or you think it didn't happen that way?
Interesting
I think I am largely done, I'm not trying to go back and forth with you forever.
To me, it seems like this definition of imperialism doesn't match with what you were saying earlier (being mainly about economic exploitation of the global south)... I mean, unless do you count China as part of the global south? Certainly sending weapons to Israel isn't a good thing, but it's not really an explicitly economic one, and he's done more to break away from the US's longstanding alliance with Israel than any other recent president. IDK, not that any of that excuses sending them a bunch of fucking weapons and providing them cover at the UN.
I don't think the recent tariffs on China are at all the most noteworthy thing Biden has done global-trade-wise. I feel honestly like you're just including that because it's been in the news recently. Probably Biden's most impactful action on megacorps overall was the 15% minimum corporate tax which e.g. practically doubled Amazon's taxes, which revenue he used to boost domestic manufacturing, all of which is the exact opposite of imperialism as you previously defined it.
IDK man. Like I say I sorta lost my motivation for the back and forth. I was just curious about your viewpoint and I enjoy a certain amount of this type of debate / discussion.